


Come in From the Cold

by caitlinrose923



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Captain Swan Secret Santa, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 10:17:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13144548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caitlinrose923/pseuds/caitlinrose923
Summary: Emma has had a crush on superstitious Killian Jones for years now, but he still sees her as the same little girl the Nolans adopted so many years ago. Where's the mistletoe when you need it?





	Come in From the Cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [natascha_ronin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/natascha_ronin/gifts).



> This is my Captain Swan Secret Santa gift for the lovely [natascha_ronin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/natascha_ronin/works). I hope you enjoy it :)

“You know, you’re supposed to use a piece of last year’s yule log to light this year’s. It protects the house from evil spirits.”

Emma nearly smacked her head on the top of the fireplace as she turned around.

“It’s not a yule log, it’s just a regular log in a regular fire,” she rolled her eyes.

“Semantics.”

She playfully shoved Killian out of her way as she stood.

“Well, I didn’t save any firewood from the Christmas party last year, so we’ll have to make do. I suppose I should beware of black cats crossing my path today, too?”

“I mean, you should always beware of black cats walking directly in your path, Duckling.”

Emma was well aware of Killian’s tendency towards superstitions. He didn’t leave his house on Friday the 13th, he didn’t walk under ladders, and he always did that weird thing with salt whenever it spilled. He was one of David’s quirkier friends, but she loved him all the same.

He, of course, didn’t know just how _much_ she loved him. Or rather, in what way.

Killian still thought of her as his best friend’s little sister. He ruffled her hair, teased her relentlessly, and still occasionally called her ‘Duckling’, an unfortunate nickname that had followed her since her obsession with _The Ugly Duckling_ as an eight-year-old. When the neighborhood kids had started using it against her, David and Killian had stepped in and made it a friendly nickname, one she secretly loved hearing. Even now, as an adult.

“Are you coming caroling with us, Duckling?” Killian followed Emma into the kitchen.

“You’re going to drag me along either way, I don’t know why you bother asking.”

“Someday you’ll agree to go willingly, and I won’t have to hold your hand the whole way.”

_Not a chance_ , Emma thought to herself as she blushed just a bit.

“I saved you some cookie batter. Go shove a spoon in your face so you don’t have to bother me anymore,” Emma scolded him gently.

“You really should have led with cookie batter,” he pressed a kiss to her cheek and went to find a spoon.

“This is gonna be the year. I can feel it.” Mary Margaret appeared at Emma’s side, whispering.

“You say that every year.”

“And every year, _you_ find a reason to leave early, and every year, Killian is disappointed for the entire evening afterwards. This year, stick around. Please?”

“I think you’re exaggerating Killian’s level of disappointment when it comes to my presence, or lack thereof.”

Mary Margaret simply hummed in response.

There was a clatter behind them as Killian tossed the bowl and the spoon into the sink.

“I’ve finished the chocolate chip.”

“That’s David’s favorite!” Emma swatted his arm.

“I know,” and there was that grin. The one that made Emma’s insides do somersaults and her legs go all gooey. Emma was _not_ a gooey, lovey-dovey person. But Killian Jones did something to her – had done for half her life. He brought out a side of her that thought maybe, just maybe, sometimes life did bring you happy endings and romance and fairy tales.

Of course, all of that would only be true if he’d stop looking at her as the same kid she’d been when they’d met, so long ago she couldn’t even remember. Killian had been a staple in her life in her earliest memories, ones of David showing her around the elementary school, showing her how to get from her kindergarten classroom to his third grade one. And while David had held her right hand, Killian had held her left.

The Nolans had adopted her when she was in the middle of kindergarten. And though things at home were comfortable, and she rarely wanted for anything, the kids at school were cruel. Where Ruth, Robert, and David provided Emma with a home, hugs, praise, and love, her classmates reminded her daily that someone hadn’t wanted her.

“Where are your real parents, Ugly Duckling?”

 “Why don’t you go back to your _real_ family?”

And every time Emma left her lunch period crying – from age five and up until high school – she went and found David and Killian, and one of them held her and protected her, while the other went and told those bullies exactly who they were messing with.

It was right after high school when Killian started to look less like a bonus sibling and more like…well, a real human adult man. He’d taken to the sea, to rowing and sailing and surfing and nearly anything else you could possibly do on the water. The rowing especially had done…something to his physique that Emma particularly appreciated.

After his older brother died – killed in action while serving in the Navy – Killian grew out his hair and stopped shaving regularly. That was also when the superstitions began, after Liam’s unit had left port on February 2nd, despite the superstitions against leaving for any voyage on Candlemas. He disappeared for months at a time, at first, but he always came home in time for Christmas.

Ten years later, he always made sure to be the first one through the door for Christmas dinner, whether he’d been away for months or he’d just seen them all the day before.

“It’s a blessing for the home if the first person who visits during Christmas is a black haired man,” he’d wink when Emma answered the door in her pajamas, barely awake and hair askew.

“No one else will be here for _at least_ four hours, Killian. Can’t you be the first person to visit…later?”

“Can’t take that chance, Duckling. With Ruth and Robert gone, I’ve got to make sure this house stays blessed for you, don’t I?”

And then he’d make her hot chocolate and put on Christmas movies. And Emma knew, somewhere deep down, that he also wanted to make sure that she didn’t spend one second of Christmas alone. And that he didn’t particularly want to spend any of it alone either.

Eventually, David and Mary Margaret and Regina and Robin would show up, and sometimes Ruby came and she always had a different date on her arm than she had the year before. And they always teased Emma and Killian about what the could have possibly done alone together for four entire hours when the house was still such a mess and none of the food was cooked. And Killian would roll his eyes and Emma would blush because she, of course, was _dying_ to do some of the things that they were insinuating that she was doing with Killian Jones.

But that was a part of the tradition and Emma looked forward to it every single year.

After dinner, Killian waited until everyone had had just the right amount of liquor – enough to feel silly, not enough to feel tired – and then he’d yell out about how it was time to go caroling.

And since Emma lived in the same house she’d grown up in, David wanting to build his own castle for himself and Mary Margaret when Ruth and Robert had passed away, they caroled at the same houses that they’d been caroling and trick-or-treating at since they were small enough to believe in Santa Claus.

And this year was no different. Emma had just brought out the second batch of cookies – snickerdoodle – when Killian decided it was time.

“What’s the lineup, Jones?” Regina asked, just the tiniest bit of a slur to her voice.

“Jingle Bells, Rudolph, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas…” Killian began counting on his fingers.

“We’re saving that one for Ruby’s grandmother, right? It’s her favorite.” Emma pointed out.

“Yes, Duckling, I’m well aware of my audience, thank you.”

Emma stuck out her tongue.

Thirty minutes later, they were all bundled up, a few more shots of rum were gone, and they were ready to sing to the whole street.

Emma complained about the cold and the songs and the cheesiness of it all, and Killian grabbed her hand, hooked it through his elbow, and dragged her along anyway.

When they reached Marco’s house, singing O Holy Night, Emma noticed a small bit of mistletoe hanging on the porch. It was really more above David and Mary Margaret, but if Emma stretched just a bit to the right, it’d be above her shoulder, sort of, and she was already hooked to Killian’s arm, so…

“Oh look, David, mistletoe!”

Mary Margaret had seen it first, was already kissing David before Emma could step under it and act as though she hadn’t seen it before. She knew Killian would kiss her, and she knew it was probably ridiculous and childish to want that, but he was so superstitious and you kind of _had_ to kiss under the mistletoe for luck or something, right?

They moved onto the next house.

It was nearly 10PM when they got to the Rabbit Hole. They ended their caroling session there every year, and Emma never lasted more than twenty minutes. The warmth of the rum was gone, but it had left its weariness behind. There was a chill straight through to her bones from being outside for so long. She just wanted the warmth of her own bed.

“Stay, Emma. _Please_.” Mary Margaret begged her. And Emma wanted to give in, but she couldn’t give herself some sort of false hope that Killian would do something differently if she were there, couldn’t set herself up for that disappointment.

Instead, Emma said her goodbyes, saving Killian for last.

“I wish you’d stay for once, Duckling.” His eyes looked sad. Maybe Mary Margaret hadn’t been totally off base.

“I’m tired, Killian.”

“One more round?”

He looked at her with his patented puppy dog eyes, biting his lip, one eyebrow raised.

How the hell was she supposed to say no?

“ _One_.” She said firmly.

His face broke out in a grin, and Mary Margaret laughed, covering it with a cough.

One more round of drinks turned into two, and then three, and before Emma knew it, she was out until 2AM on a night she’d planned to be in bed by 11. The bar closed down and they all waited together for cabs and Ubers, huddled together for warmth.

 “Should we share a cab?” Killian asked her. He lived two streets away from her, an easy distance for either of them to walk if the driver only wanted to stop once.

“Sure,” and Emma would lie later and say her face was red from the rum and the cold, and not at all from the excitement of sharing a backseat with someone she’d known her entire life.

Christmas was bringing out her embarrassingly romantic side.

She nearly fell asleep on his shoulder in the backseat of the cab, and he sat silently, the quietest she’d ever known him to be.

“You up, Duckling? We’re home,” he whispered in her ear.

He coaxed her out of the car gently, letting her lean on him as they walked up the driveway. He walked her to the door, pausing as if he had some important message to deliver. The look in his eyes – all nerves and a bit of liquid courage – woke her up as she scrambled to find her keys.

“I hung some decorations out here this morning before I knocked,” he said.

“Decorations?” she mumbled, desperately digging through her purse for those damn keys, her fingers already growing numb from the cold.

“Well, one. A singular decoration.”

“What are you talking about, Killian?” She couldn’t hide the frustration in her voice, still struggling to rummage through her mess of a bag.

“Dammit, Emma, just look _up_!”

She’d found her keys as he yelled, but she dropped them to the ground when she looked up and found mistletoe hanging from her porchlight.

She opened her mouth to question…something, to ask what he was doing hanging mistletoe on her porch, but before she could get the question out, he was kissing her.

It was everything she’d imagined it would be, except they were drunk and their teeth were clicking together and their lips were cold and her fingers were numb so she couldn’t grab his hair the way she wanted to.

“It’s bad luck not to do that,” he said against her neck.

“Is that why you hung it there in the first place?” And there was a tiny voice in Emma’s head that wanted to question all of this, couldn’t understand why Killian Jones was suddenly kissing her on her front porch after Christmas dinner. But the larger part of her brain smacked that tiny part down and kissed him again.

“I had to find some way to kiss you, didn’t I?” He grinned against her mouth.

“Do you wanna come inside and…finish off the snickerdoodles?”

Killian reached up and grabbed the mistletoe before following her inside. She eyed him questioningly.

“Just in case I need to kiss you again.”


End file.
